Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 07 - The Swamps of Bayou Teche (12 page)

“A considerable amount?”

“He never said.”

“Did they ever have any business deals together?”

She hesitated a moment, her black eyes shifting
their gaze to the cigarette in her hand. “Not any with
the Bagotville National Bank other than his casino is
one of our depositors.”

She seemed to be getting over her little attack of
nerves. “Did you ever hear any talk about Hardy declaring bankruptcy for another bank he owned years
ago up in Opelousas?”

She shrugged. “Not really. Oh, there was talk, but I
never heard any details.”

“What about the name Babin? Hardy ever mention
the name to you?”

For a fleeting second, she stiffened, then relaxed, so quickly I chalked it up to my imagination. “A bank
customer?”

“No. From what I heard, he was a partner of Hardy’s
fifteen or twenty years back. Committed suicide.”

Her eyes glittered coldly. “I never heard of him,
sorry.”

`Rabin had a wife, Karen.”

Laura took a deep drag on her cigarette. “Sorry”

I remembered the call girl Sue Cullen had mentioned. “What about a woman named Fawn Williams?”

Giving her head a sharp shake, Laura Palmo smiled
derisively. The coal-black hair that lay over her left
cheek flipped back momentarily, revealing a large
scar from the middle of her cheek to her ear. It was a
burn scar. Once you’ve seen one, you never forget how
the trauma contracts the flesh into leathery, irregular
patterns. “Fawn Williams,” she replied in disgust.
“That’s one name I’ve heard too much”

“Oh, why is that?”

She gestured with her Virginia Slim clutched between slender fingers that curved gracefully upward
beyond the horizontal plane of her hand. With a sigh,
she continued, “John, well, he, ah, he patronized her, I
guess is the best way to put it. Often,” she added with
a wry grin.

“Over what period of time? I mean, a few weeks,
months-”

She laughed. “How about years? Anyway, it came
to a head a few months back when she tried to black mail him. Threatened she’d go to the local newspaper
with the story of their affair if he didn’t pay off.” She
arched an eyebrow. “I suppose she’s over the hill now
and looking for security in her old age”

I arched an eyebrow. Sounded like motive to me.
And the gas receipt in Williams’ Jeep dated April 26th
screamed opportunity. “What kind of payoff?”

“Five hundred thousand,” she replied simply.

I whistled softly.

“But John refused. You see, Fawn didn’t know just
how connected John Hardy is, I mean-” She hesitated, frowned, then continued, “Is all up and down
Bayou Teche, from Morgan City to Lafayette. All John
had to do was call the Terrechoisie Parish Sheriff’s
Department, and they brought about some pressure on
her.” She shrugged. “I don’t know what, but when they
did, that little woman backed away in one big hurry”

“That was the last time she spoke to him?”

She gave her head a brief shake. “As far as I know.
Oh, he did say that she called him back and swore to
get even with him for turning the law on her.”

Nodding slowly, I mentally went back over the questions I had planned to ask. More and more the answers
and the facts, what few there were, seemed to be focusing on Fawn Williams, a.k.a., Sophie Mae Brown.

Laura drained the last of her coffee and stubbed
out the Virginia Slim in the ashtray. She looked up at
me questioningly, as if asking if the Q & A session
was over.

I decided to see if I could sandwich Gates in before
I visited Fawn Williams. “I’ve asked all I can think of.
I know this has been a strain on you, but I do appreciate your time. One more favor. What are the chances
of Mr. Gates seeing me on a Sunday?”

A faint sneer touched her lips. “Gates? Who knows,
but let’s find out.”

I went back over our conversation on the way to
Gates’ place. Palmo had filled in a few gaps, but I was
still muddling about with no clear direction in mind.

Call it serendipity, call it chance, call it blind luck,
but I’ve noticed that sometimes during investigations
ideas or information surface unexpectedly from unanticipated sources. Sometimes I know what to do with
it; other times, I have absolutely no idea, and that was
the feeling I had now.

In visiting with Laura, every time Marvin Gates’
name came up, I sensed an undercurrent of resentment on her part. And I noticed while she addressed
Hardy as either John or Mr. Hardy, she simply used
Gates’ surname when referring to him. I had the dis tinct feeling there was something out of place between
Marvin Gates and Laura Palmo.

Thinking back to the cassette tape given to me by
Hardy’s mother, I remember she alluded to the fact
that while Hardy and Gates were not personal
friends, they did make a winning partnership. A
vague idea tumbled about in the back of my head, but
every time I thought I had it, it slipped through my
fingers.

Wearing a garish Hawaiian shirt, baggy khaki
shorts, and flip-flop sandals, Gates met me at his front
door, his craggy face filled with alarm. “Come in,
come in.” He stepped back and held the door open. He
glanced past me at Jack in the Cadillac. “Your friend
is more than welcome to come in, it’s cool,” he said.

“Thanks, but he has the air going.”

The tone in Palmo’s voice every time Gates’ name
arose intrigued me, so I decided to get a grasp on what
sort of relationship the two shared. As I entered the
foyer, I said nonchalantly, “By the way, I’d like to
compliment you on your secretary, Laura Palmo. She’s
very knowledgeable, and she’s been very helpful.”

His eyes hardened. “John hired her, not me,” he retorted sharply. The icy edges on his words were palpable, so palpable that I knew immediately the two never
met after work for drinks.

“But she works for both of you”

He nodded sharply, and then led me down a hall.
“Is it true? About John? They found his body?”

“Like I told Ms. Palmo, it’s too soon to know, but if
it is Mr. Hardy, we’ll find out soon enough.”

He invited me into a living area large enough to
take in three of my apartments with room left over to
park my Silverado pickup. Two walls sported extensive entertainment centers, each with its own arrangement of leather couches. In the middle of the room,
surrounded by plush leather chairs, was a large round
table with a mosaic top replicating the LSU tiger, in
the middle of which sat a lazy susan cradling several
crystal tumblers and carafes of various whiskeys. Two
or three partially filled ashtrays and a few matchbooks were spaced about the table.

Gesturing to a chair, he reached for a bottle of bourbon and held it up to me.

I sat. “No, thanks. A.A.,” I added so as not to offend
him, a not unusual reaction of many people in that
neck of the woods when their offer of drink is refused.
This was a country where wine and whiskey and beer
were as much part of the scheme of life as coffee, tea,
and milk. In fact, I have family members who consider boiled seafood, fried seafood, baked seafood,
and a six-pack of beer as the four food groups.

He poured a tumbler of bourbon and ran his thick fingers through his thinning white hair. “I don’t wish harm
to no one, but I hope it’s someone else and not John”

I decided to see just how honest John Hardy was
with his mother. “Were you and Hardy good friends?”

The portly man arched an eyebrow. “We are partners” He stressed the present tense are.

Absently, I picked up a book of matches and toyed
with it. “And work well together, I was told. A partnership many admired.” Before he could reply, I
added, “On the other hand, I’ve been told that you and
Hardy were not personal friends. Now, they might
have been mistaken. I don’t know. I’m just asking.” I
opened the match cover and noted that the matches
had been torn from the right side.

I studied him as he took a hurried drink of bourbon.
His reply was brusque. “We didn’t run in the same social circles, if that’s what you mean”

I didn’t push that issue any further. I discovered
what I wanted to know. Mrs. Hardy knew what she
was talking about.

Nodding, I replied. “It is. How long have you two
been partners?”

“Thirteen years,” he replied, seeming to relax as he
slid into a plush chair. Long ago I had come to the
conclusion that bankers deliberately used thick, luxurious chairs to put clients off-guard so they could hit
them with usurious interest charges.

“Nineteen ninety-three,” he added, downing half of
his bourbon. “Good years” He shook his head, then
leaned back in his chair. “Now, what else?”

I touched on some of the same topics I had covered
with Laura Palmo and discovered no major fallacies
between the two. Gates elaborated on Hardy’s gambling. “I know Jimmy Blue. His real name is Jimmy
Opilitto. His place is as honest as any of them. John
and I argued from time to time about his gambling. He
lost big, and my fear was that word would spread
about his gambling losses and in turn the bank would
suffer.”

“Did that happen?”

A sheepish grin played over his face. “Fortunately,
no.”

“I heard Hardy had some business dealings with
Jimmy Blue.”

Gates pursed his lips and shook his head slowly.
“Other than the casino is one of our depositors, none
that I know of.”

“You knew John Hardy once had a bank go under
up in Opelousas?”

His face grew grim. “Yes. It wasn’t his fault. It was
his partner, or I should say, his partner’s wife.”

I leaned forward. “The partner, that was Babin,
Duclize Babin?”

“Why, yes,” he exclaimed, surprised. “How did you
know?” He paused, then chuckled. “You’ve talked to
other people”

With a crooked grin, I replied, “A lot of them. So,
what happened with the bank?”

“Well, I’m probably telling you what you already know. John and Babin started one up in the early seventies. Babin committed suicide in about seventy-nine
or eighty, and his wife-I think her name was
Karen-well, she took over his share of the bank.
Then she started embezzling. Went on for a couple
years before John learned of it. By that time, she’d
soaked the bank for almost two million.”

I whistled. “Two million? She must have had herself one good time.”

Gates frowned. “On the contrary. Her lifestyle
didn’t change. The D.A. figures she socked it away
somewhere, foreign accounts or something like that.
Naturally, she went to prison.” He paused. “I don’t remember exactly when she was released, but the irony
was that she was killed in a car wreck just after she
was released. I don’t think she even had time to pick
up her stash of money. As far as I know, it’s never
turned up. Probably rotting away in some foreign
bank somewhere”

I chuckled with him. “Fate plays funny tricks at
times. One more question. Did Mr. Hardy ever say
anything about bank customers, investors threatening
him after the bank folded?”

Leaning forward, Gates rested his elbows on the
table. ‘Like I said, it wasn’t his fault. It was Babin’s
wife-or widow I should say”

“Still, I’m sure there were some irate, even outraged customers who wanted to blame someone. And
he was the most visible.”

Gates nodded slowly. “There was one that John told
me about. Man by the name of Collins”

“He have a first name?”

“Not that I know of. John only mentioned him once,
and then only by the last name, but he lived in
Opelousas. Ms. Palmo might have heard John talk
about him. He came after John with a gun, but the
sheriff’s department took care of the guy. I don’t
know what happened to him.” He arched an eyebrow.
“Surely, you don’t think-I mean, after all these
years-”

I shrugged. “After several years in this business,
Mr. Gates, I can tell you there are people out there
who can hold a grudge forever.”

“But it’s been at least twenty years”

I just shrugged. “That’s all some people live for.”

He curled one side of his lip. “That’s pretty cynical,
isn’t it?”

Grinning, I rose and extended my hand. “My
granddaddy called it being honest”

Back in the car, I called Laura Palmo who agreed to
see me once again, but only if I promised to pick up a
six-pack of Big Easy beer if our conversation was going to last more than ten minutes.

On the way over, one of Gates’ remarks popped
into my head. “Partners for thirteen years” Now, I
was no lawyer, but I knew enough to understand that
there were partnership agreements, and then there
were partnership agreements.

I hadn’t thought to ask just what sort of agreement
Marvin Gates and John Hardy had. There are many
prison cellblocks that have housed more than one
partner who had removed the other out of greed.

“Well,” Laura Palmo asked, standing in the doorway. “Did you bring it?”

I handed her the plastic sack with the six-pack of
Big Easy. She smiled becomingly. “That means we’ll
go back out on the sun porch” She turned and headed
down a hall. Over her shoulder, she said, “Did you
find out anything helpful from Gates?”